


The Barnes Case

by trace_of_scarlet



Category: Marvel (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, New Tricks
Genre: Crossover, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-12
Updated: 2013-02-12
Packaged: 2017-11-29 02:43:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 749
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/681816
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trace_of_scarlet/pseuds/trace_of_scarlet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Two agencies, one suspiciously Winter Soldier-y case. SHIELD and UCOS might actually have to work together on something -- which has never exactly come naturally to either of them...</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Barnes Case

**Author's Note:**

> Beta-ed by the Eric of my heart.

“Well,” Sandra Pullman remarks, “It _is_ our case. You can’t expect my boys to give it up just like that.”

She says it almost lightly, but with absolute self-assurance and just that faint suggestion of very classy steel: take this one away from us, Coulson hears, and you won’t enjoy the process. Not that UCOS could do much, he thinks, probably. 

Probably. 

And isn’t _that_ a word they’ve all heard too many times before? 

“Mmm,” he says non-committally. “Coffee?” 

Pullman tilts a glance towards Strickland and Fury, who appear to be miming the process of damn near coming to blows behind what he’s a little bit sorry is sound-proofed glass. He still can’t quite believe that a mere Deputy Assistant Commissioner like Pullman’s boss had managed to dig his well-connected heels in to such an extent that it required the actual physical (and highly irascible) presence of SHIELD’s very-much- _not_ -deputy assistant director. However, apparently the Barnes case has ties to several major Met operations and Strickland has, under those civil-servant manners and that painfully British grey suit, a bullish streak to rival Fury’s own. 

Still. Maybe Sitwell can manage to pull the video later - and there’s not a SHIELD agent on or off the planet who can’t lip-read like a professional. The footage might even go some way to improving professional relations with Pullman and her team, who seem to be just as entertained by their bosses’ near-literal clash of heads as he is. 

“They’re going to be a while,” she remarks, very matter-of-fact. “Pub?” 

He’s never really understood the British fascination with the pub, but Fury only recently issued everyone Level 3 and above another memo on knowing your enemy - and he knows that look on the Director’s face, recognises it as the one he generally pulls before yet another all-nighter on the firing range. 

“Pub,” he agrees, and looks about for his assistant (and self-proclaimed ‘sidekick’). “Lewis?” 

Darcy’s ruffled head pops up from behind the three computer screens that mark the domain of one of Pullman’s ‘boys’ - who must be sixty-five if he’s a day; Coulson will personally cook and eat his own SHIELD badge if the man is under sixty. Lewis, however, appears characteristically undaunted by the forty-plus-year gap in their ages. 

“Oh my God!” she starts, and he can hear the precursor to a geek-babble in her tone as the bespectacled geek whose computer she is gleeing over beams paternally behind her. “You should see this set-up, sir, it’s totally -” 

She breaks off at his warning eyebrow raise, because contrary to popular belief Darcy Lewis actually _can_ take a hint. “Sir?” 

“We’re going to the pub,” Coulson tells her. “Are you coming? I think the Director’s going to be a while.” 

“That, or there’ll be a mushroom cloud over the station in five minutes,” Pullman mutters, and very nearly surprises a grin out of him. 

“I’ll come, sir,” Darcy says instantly, which he’d pretty much expected her to: she’s barely let him out of her sight since that whole incident with Loki, a big knife, and the _absolutely unconscionable_ trashing of the complete set of his near-mint-condition Captain America trading cards. (Even if Captain Rogers _did_ sign a couple of the less, uh, bloody ones, once he got over the whole thing where Coulson was in fact very much _not_ dead-by-Norse-asshole.) Anyway. 

He zones back in to see Pullman looking at him bemusedly and Lewis standing in front of him, grinning the way she tends to grin when she thinks a new adventure is about to happen. 

“Pub?” she prompts, and the older woman nods and leads the way out of the office, her ‘boys’ trailing after them like nosy ducklings. 

“It’s just around the corner,” Pullman says, as they wait for the elevator. “And while we wait for either World War Three or an armistice, you can do me a favour and explain just why the death of one US special agent in Austria in 1944 is so bloody important to your boss that he had to come over here to annoy Strickland in person, and if it’s really, really good, maybe the lads and I will cut you in on the action.” 

He laughs, and startles Lewis. “Even if it wasn’t need-to-know only - you really, really would not believe me if I told you.” 

“Sounds promising,” Sandra smirks. “Try us.” 

Oh well, international inter-agency co-operation and all that. The elevator trills its arrival; he chuckles. “If it’s your round, I just might."


End file.
